Preparing Crab - a photo tutorial -

[culinary bear]

This is the third in an occasional series (read: whenever I have the time and something interesting to share) of illustrated techniques, showing the methods I use to prepare and cook certain foods.

Note that these aren't the only ways; the primary function of these is to educate and share, but also to encourage and stimulate debate over the differences in the various techniques people use.

This time, we have the common edible crab, Cancer pagarus.

So, without further ado :

1) One edible crab, very much alive. Never buy raw dead crabs, as, like lobsters, the flesh undergoes a process of autodigestion a few hours after death and this ruins the texture. Buy cooked by all means, but do try and buy live if at all possible. Unlike lobsters, killing the crab before boiling is a good idea as otherwise they tend to shed their claws in the water, allowing the water to penetrate the body cavity and make the body meat watery and insipid.

2) Flip the crab on its back. Note that the claws of the crab aren't secured; personally I'm confident enough to use a crab like this but if you're at all wary, please ensure the claws are bound with stout rubber bands. Crab claws can crush fingers causing serious injury.

3) Peel back the ventral flap. You might need to use the point of a knife to get leverage, but once you lift it up do be warned, the crab will not like this and will wriggle around somewhat.

4) Take a thick skewer, and with the tip, find the vent at the base of the flap. Drive the skewer all the way through the crab to behind the eyes.

5) Rotate the crab around so that the front end is facing you. Again, beware the claws.

6) With the skewer, find the mouth of the crab and stab through the body of the crab to the vent end, mirroring your first stab.

7) Wait a moment or two, and your crab should expire. It will go limp and the legs and claws will droop if you pick it up by the vent end as shown.

8) Weigh your crab. Cooking times are around 18 minutes for your first kg, and another 5 minutes for each further 500g / approximately 20 minutes for your first 2.5lbs, and a further 5 minutes per lb. It's not a very exact science, I'm afraid. This crab took 26 minutes.

9) Bring a pan of water to the boil. I use 200g/7oz sea salt per 4 litres/1 gallon of water.

10) Drop the crab carefully into the pot, legs down. Start your timer.

11) When cooked, put the crab in running cold water and leave for five minutes to cool. Assemble your crab picking kit : a steel or rolling pin for cracking the shell, a skewer for picking meat out, and (not pictured) a stout-bladed knife for prising the body off the shell. The forceps are just my backup for nibbling away at shell fragments, and the poultry shears are useful for breaking open legs, but you can do without them. You'll also need a tray and two bowls.

12) Twist all the legs and claws off as close to the body as possible.

13) The part of the crab where the legs joined should now be separated from the main carapace of the crab. Using you knife, slide the tip between the two parts and twist to loosen it. Grasp the leg-joint assembly and lever it away from the carapace. remove the grey feathery gills (called dead man's fingers - you'll see why) from the carapace and from the leg-joint assembly. These are inedible.

14) Using your knife or poultry shears, cut the leg-joint assembly into halves.

15) Using your skewer, pick out the white meat into one bowl, and the brown into another.

16) With your fingers (they have a better reach) scoop out the brown meat from the carapace into your bowl.

17) Place the claws against a hard surface, and tap with the steel until they crack. With the claws and legs, try and strike along the length, not across it; this tends to reduce the chance of fragmenting the shell into lots of little pieces which are then a pain to remove from the picked meat. Use the skewer to pick the meat out, paying attention to the hard cartilaginous 'bones' that reside in the claws and upper legs. Repeat with the legs. I don't bother picking the meat from any apart from the largest piece of each minor leg - it's too fiddly unless you have a lot of time on your hands.

18) This shows the amount of meat gained from one crab. It's good practice to manually pick over your white crab meat at this stage to remove odd bits of shell and cartilage.

19) The detritus from the picking process.

20) White meat - 250g, brown meat - 130g, and it took me 20 minutes to pick the crab apart once cooked and take the photos.

So, your thoughts? Does anyone's technique differ markedly, and for what reasons?

Edited February 19, 2005 by culinary bear (log)

[Mayhaw Man]

Excellent. Really great! Clear photos and concise directions.

I live in blue crab world, not big giant crab world, but the basic technique is the same-except for the cooking liquid-it would be loaded with various kinds of spicy goodness.

[culinary bear]

Thank you - I really enjoy writing these.

These are fairly hefty for British C. pagarus, but I have seen up to 7lb specimens.

I've found the penetration of spices is minimal with C. pagarus, perhaps because of the thick shell and generally large size, but I imagine it would work well with the smaller blues.

Regrettably, we don't get softshell crabs easily over here.

Edited February 19, 2005 by culinary bear (log)

[fou de Bassan]

Yay! I love the tutorials. Since I'm from Virginia I grew up eating blue crabs by the bushel. We didn't drive a spike through their heads- just put them in a really big pot with water vinegar and LOTS of Old Bay. God, I miss those days

[culinary bear]

Is anyone else thinking of John Hurt in 'Alien' when they see photos 3 and 4?

The resemblance did strike me.

[CaliPoutine]

Im curious, how much did the crab cost?

I paid 8.99 for a 1lb can of pasturized lump crabmeat.

[fifi]

Im curious, how much did the crab cost?

I paid 8.99 for a 1lb can of pasturized lump crabmeat.

←

That isn't bad at all. last weekend I got robbed at $11.99 (US) for 8 ounces. And that wasn't the jumbo. Then I noticed that they charged me the same thing for the tub of claw meat. (I am usually watching when they ring up but I got distracted this time by ruunning into a friend.) But then, I think the fish guy screwed up. When I got home and looked at the receipt, it appears that I paid $5.38 (US) for 2 pounds of medium shrimp tails. I guess it all came out even in the end.

[jtcookie]

Great work Allan!....and who's the gal in the background of photo #1??

Most of your technique applies well to the beloved Dungeness crab we feast on over here on the Wet Coast.

The one difference to your method that I use is at Step #12. Instead of twisting off the legs and claws as close to the body as possible, I lay the crab down on the board, spreading my left hand over the legs and claw of the crab's left side. Holding it firmly on the board, I lift the left side of the top shell with my right hand, and quickly pull off the shell.

This gives you unbroken cavities of flesh where the leg joints to the body, cutting down on some of the fragments, and enabling you to pick out larger intact white meat pieces from those cavities.

I sometimes use this method pre-boil, if I'm going to be cooking the beasts in advance, as the mustard tends to stain some of the internal white meat. If its going to be straight from the pot to the plate, they're whole!

Speaking of the "mustard" found under the top shell; the all-time best preparation for this is to mix some warm, in the shell, with some scotch, and drink same from the shell. Manna of heaven! and the only exception I make to what I mix my scotch with.

We usually have "crab and corn" fests in summer, when our local corn is but a 1 hour drive, field to boiler, but lately I've been eating winter crab, which has been noticeably firmer-fleshed - almost 'crisp'. I put this down to colder water maybe slowing down metabolism, but think now that it may have something to do with the mating cycle.

Any thoughts? And many thanks for the lovely tutorial.

Cancerally

John

[fifi]

Thank you for the great tutorial. That crab really does remind me of the Dungeoness crabs of the Pacific Northwest in the US. A few years ago, the kids and I were on a vacation up there. We had the great good fortune to stay at this lovely place. Kevin was a working colleague and I was delighted to finally meet Earlene. In the morning we went down the hill to their home (the house just downhill from the rooms which are in the foreground) for breakfast. (Normally, breakfast is delivered to your door.) Earlene was preparing crab omelet for us. I asked if I could help. That was my first time at trying to deal with what are monster crabs to me. Here in the Gulf Coast, we get the blue crabs like in Maryland.

[culinary bear]

CaliPoutine - the crabs were just under US$20 each.

John - that's a sculpture given to my flatmate by his girlfriend for christmas. :)

an hour from corn field to boiler? I am jealous... then again, we get phenomenal asparagus over here, and one friend of mine has a pot of boiling water on a primus stove at the end of his garden so it's seconds from cutting to stomachs. :)

fifi - Dungeoness crabs? the Dominant species in the area, no doubt. :p I didn't realise there was an O in there.

Edited February 19, 2005 by culinary bear (log)

[fifi]

You, of course are correct. No "o" in Dungeness. (Type that 100 times Ms. fifi!)

I think they are the dominant species in the area. They are certainly the most popular from what I can tell. And wouldn't you know it . . . The creature has its own web site. They seem to be about the same size as your crab.

[Abra]

Beautiful, thank you CB! I think you've convinced me that I don't want to kill crabs, although now I know how to do it if I'm ever out on the Dungeness Spit and in need of immediate sustenance.

I'm right in the heart of Dungeness territory, but fresh, beautifully picked-over crab meat is still $20 a lb. However, now that I see how much/little you got for 20 minutes work, I'm starting to think it's not such a bad deal.

I've never heard of "brown meat." You fellow Dungenessers, is that something our crabs don't have, or do we call it something else?

[culinary bear]

Brown meat, sometimes called mustard, is the darker meat from the body of the crab, as ooposed ot the fibrous white meat from the legs and claws.

I appreciate the effort involved in cooking your own crab, but there is, in my opinion, a huge difference in quality between buying prepped crab meat and doing it yourself.